Paper shall thrive
The scenario
The year is 2020; society has evolved in a fully automated computer based organism. Offices have completely stopped using paper and rely on e-mail and other digital communication techniques. In order to sustain this, people carry around advanced personal digital assistants that communicate through the worldwide wireless web. This PDA has become the digital extension of every human being; it provides services ranging from Internet access to navigation and communication, personalized advertisement and entertainment. Everything is digital, from the advertisement displays on the street to the in-house control panels, and from the gigantic digital traffic information panels to all indirect communication.
One oddity springs to your mind immediately if one would stroll through one of the many neon-lit shopping malls. There in the corner between a gigantic electronics store and a fully automated McDonalds sits a small store that is not filled with the artificial light of LCD screens. A store where people happily browse, sit down with a beverage and communicate with each other the old fashioned way: the traditional paper bookstore, a haven for everyone that wants a break from the high speed, fast-pased, eye-strain inducing, digital society. Also if one would commute with one of the high speed magnetic trains you would see people taking a rare break from their digital extensions, only to indulge in an activity that is so ancient no one knows who actually started it: reading a paper book, chatting about it with other commuters and openly expressing their experiences. It is strange that among all this hi-tech equipment and LCD operated devices the paper book is still so widely used. No one really knows why this, only that books have something magic about them and that it somehow provides a very pleasant break from the so familiar LCD screen.
Only once in a while someone is seen with an electronic reading device; a piece of equipment seen by most as unhandy, complicated and generally unpleasant in its use. The people using these e-readers are most likely either university students or highly specialized technical workers. They somehow have broken away from the paper spell and use their electronic readers to store vast amounts of technical books and are able to find information in these quickly by using the extended search functionality on their e-readers. To the rest of the people these devices are seen as weird, stale and impersonal; when someone reads from one in the train you can't even see what he is reading by having a quick glance at the cover and indulge in pleasant conversation about it.
Another group of people that may be using these devices are download savvy people that have acquired their book in less legal ways, and use their digital readers to read them. Their arguments are often that this way they are saving trees and the environment, but everyone knows this is utter nonsense since paper and trees are available in abundance. These people are frowned upon because they don't pay for their literate, but everyone knows they are paying the price because they have to read them on their eye-straining LCD screens or unhandy e-readers. Furthermore they are not hurting the publishing market anyway, the percentage that downloads books is only insignificantly small anyway.
Background information
Introduction
The "Paper shall thrive" scenario argues that paper book will remain popular in both the near and far future. Electronic books will also exists alongside paper books, but only for a very particular niche market. It argues that paper books are far superior to their counterpart electronic version because of added emotional value, something that eBooks don't have. It also argues that the major advantages of eBooks do not weigh up to the advantages of paper books and that the latter will never be replaced.
The emotion of books
The five senses
Paper books are something special; there is something about them that cannot be imitated by anything else. Sure you might think it's all about the content of the book but don't be misjudged by this common misconception. When you pick up a book it communicates to you through all your senses. There is the size and weight of the book; a small and light book might tell you it is just a flimsy story while a heavy large book might tell you it contains an epic story. Then when you open it up there is touch; you can feel the pleasant texture of the paper and can sense the slight breeze blowing at you when you flip through the pages. With that also come the smell and hearing: you can hear the pages flip, causing a unique sound based on the paper used and the size of the book. The smell is very powerful too; especially new books carry this undeniable pleasant odor of new paper. And finally when you start reading not just the text, but also the layout communicates its content to you, this can be on a single page bases, but some book will use a combination of two pages to bring you a powerful message.
Aforementioned senses are very characteristic and unique to paper books and people will not likely stray away from the feeling that a book gives them. EBooks are only able to provide the content of a book and are missing the texture and smell of paper, the size and weight of a book, the sound a page made when it is flipped and the layout that speaks to the reader. Without these elements consumers will no be given the full experience a paper book provides when reading an eBook and the paper book will remain to be the object of choice.
The social aspect
Books have this magical attraction that forces people to at least take a peak at what others are reading. If for example you are reading a book in the train the people sitting around you will know what you are reading by looking at the cover. This aspect of books is great (for some) as it has a great social impact: it is a conversation starter. Since people are always curious about what you are reading, they will find out, and if the book or topic of the book interests them they might want to chat a bit with you. If you would be reading an eBook this will not work. Since with an eBook you can only view one page at a time, the people around you will never get a clear view of what you are exactly reading. EBooks do not have any kind of social aspect, while paper books have a lot of it. Since people are social beings they would prefer a paper book over an eBook anytime.
The joy of shopping
Another major aspect that paper books have opposed to their electronic counterparts is the joy of actually buying a book. Paper books are generally bought in bookstores while eBooks are aquired on the internet. Bookstores provide a great atmosphere in which you can fully experience browsing numerous books, chatting with other customers or enjoy a Starbucks coffee and read a bit in a book of your choice. This very enjoyable experience is completely missing when buying books over the internet in which the stale online environment will only show a small cover thumbnail and some introduction text. Browsing is most often not possible and interaction with other customers is non-existant.
Paper scarce or expensive?
The price of paper in books
Some may say that eBooks will get the upper hand over traditional paper books because of cost reductions in paper. What these people don't know is that the price of the paper in a book and the price of printing it is insignificant when compared to the total price. At the time of writing paper and printing costs average at about one euro per book; not something to change your whole strategy over. Then you might argue that the price of paper will severely go up in the future because of scarcity of wood. But this will not be the case as there are so many organizations in place that plant tree specifically for the paper industry. Moreover a major cause of deforestation is forest fires and as fire-fighting techniques continue to improve these fires will be severely reduced or maybe become a thing of the past. Paper recycling endeavors are also getting better every year and more and more paper is recycled, causing a reduced need for wood. Paper will not become a scarcity and will not become significantly more expensive and therefore is not threatening the paper book industry.
Plastic
Even if paper becomes too scarce or expensive to be used in books, non-electronic alternative can take over. In the light of the "cradle to cradle" project organizations are already experimenting with plastic books, which prove to be an excellent replacement for paper books, and although some of the qualities possessed by paper, like smell and texture, will be lost, it will still be a more enjoyable medium than the full electronic book.
Electronic readers
Usability curse
Current and future electronic book readers will suffer from usability problems for a large portion of the book market. Books are pretty much the easiest objects to use; you pick it up, flip it open and read, if you want to go to the next page or go to another section of the book you just flip some pages. Operation electronic readers is done in a fundamentally different way; instead of just picking up the book you have to download the book to the reader or transfer it from the computer to a memory card. Reading and navigating the book is also very different; instead of just opening the book you have to find it on the memory of the reader and to navigate you press next and previous buttons or type in the number of a page. This offers the same functionality as with a normal book, but it is much less intuitive and even more: much slower.
Although eBook readers are currently still in a very early stage and will evolve throughout the years it will never reach the ease of operation of a traditional book. Even if usability experts like Apple would look at it, and implement touch-screens, finger swiping navigation or maybe even voice control, a physical paper book will still be easier and more intuitive to operate and many people will prefer to not use an electronic reader because it is far too complicated.
Heavy limitations
Electronic readers of now and of the future will have some serious shortcomings when compared to paper books. Not only do they lack all the emotional and extra "senses" based experiences but they also suffer from other inadequacies. One of the biggest of these is the fact that electronic paper and e-ink have a very slow refresh rate. This is apparent in the current black and white readers but becomes an even bigger problem in the next generation colored readers. It can take more than twenty seconds to build up an entire page! This will become faster in the future but this slow refresh rate will never get to the speed of conventional LCD technology, thus making quickly browsing pages a major pain. Another inadequacy is the limited resolution, which restricts the size of the page that can be shown and the detail of illustration; this resolution will be increased in the future but at the price of refresh rate. In short current electronic readers have some serious shortcomings when compared to books and although they will be vastly improved in the future, they will never be able to reach the hights of what ordinary paper already can do.
EBooks as a niche
Students and universities
All above mentioned facts about electronic books and their readers will apply to novels, but the facts change a little when we apply these to educational books for students and universities. Educational books are primarily used as a way to gain knowledge or as reference, therefore emotional value becomes of far less concern and practicality has to be considered as one of the top requirements. In this particular case eBooks and eBook readers become far more interesting. Since they allow students to carry around all of their required study books on a small relatively light device it becomes an appealing alternative. When taking into account that keyword searching in eBooks shortens the time the student will have to search for particular knowledge the eBook wins considerably from the paper book.
This niche will keep the electronic book reader and eBook from dying out. It serves a very particular purpose for this group of lessening the weight of study books and by far enhancing the ability to quickly find target information. Of course this is only a very small piece of the total book market and will have very to no impact on revenues made on paper books.
Reference guides
A secondary, but far smaller, niche has been identified in which eBooks will serve a purposeful intent: the highly specialized technical worker. Take for example a jet engine mechanic. If he were to be called in to fix an unknown problem occurring in a specific jet engine he would have to take a whole stack of jet engine reference guides with him and spend a lot of time looking for information in order to find, diagnose and fix the problem. If he would have digital copies of all his needed reference books and an eBook reader that would be the only thing he'd have to take. Furthermore he could just search for keywords and find target information extremely fast. But once again this is only a very small niche and will not influence the book market as a whole.
Laughing about piracy
Threat?
One of the arguments why paper books will not survive in the future is the fact that people are obtaining digital copies of literature directly from the publisher or by scanning them themselves and putting them on the Internet free to download by everyone. This "piracy" has shown to be a burden on the software and video game industry and is still threatening the movie and music industry. But will it also be a threat to the publishing industry? In the case of novel the answer to this is a clear "no", since we already established that novels are not pleasant to read digitally, pirated novels will only be downloaded by the very select group of people that enjoys reading them on laptops or electronic readers or is actually crazy enough to print it out. In the case of educational literature the answer is also no, or at least very unlikely. Since educational literature publishers (like Sanoma Learning) do not just publish books, but are a full-fledged service provider they will very unlikely to be threatened by piracy. A student or teacher can illegally obtain a book, but will not get the rest of the service, which may include websites, audio and visual material, trainers material, test exams and professional help with learning or teaching. This all sums up to the conclusion that piracy is of no threat to the publishing industry.
Blessing
Piracy is not a negative development towards the publishing industry but it might as well be something positive that the whole industry can benefit off. The whole piracy scene will become something of a "see before you buy" concept, in which people can download eBooks through illegal channels, see if they like them and if they do buy them. Its purpose would be of a somewhat more convinient library accessable from your favorite desk chair. This concept would even work best for novels, since they are less fun to read on digital readers but can give the reader a very quick impression of what the book is about or if they like it. So piracy might even boost sales and become a positive factor to the whole literature industry.
Conclusion
Paper books will not change in the future, their properties that make them books are unique and cannot be replaced by digital devices. Digital books on the other hand will keep existing side by side with paper books, but will not influence their market at all; they will be more of an addition to the market, just like audio books are today. Especially educational eBooks have a very useful purpose and will be of great utility to the people that can use them. Both format will have an existence in the future and companies should be prepared to deal with them both, but paper books should have the clear focus and will by far overshadow their digital counterparts.